SLAM
Downloading Race Results from the Timing Equipment When the PRINT button on the timing equipment is pressed and confirmed at the end of a race, a number of things happen: (1) the timer stops and resets for the next race, and (2) the current race results are displayed on the LCD panel, printed on the thermal printer, stored in memory, and sent to a computer if one is attached to the serial port (see 'Connecting the timing equipment to a laptop'). When athletes arrive at the scorer's desk they will present you with the printout from their race. Apart from the race times and lane numbers or finishing position, the most important pieces of information on the printout are the date and race number. These two bits of information form the name of the text file created by the SerialReader program and accessed by SLAM. For example, the file 13110253.txt contains all the data for race 53 from 02/11/2013. For SLAM to acces the times you must be in the Result Entry page of Records and Rankings. The meet date must be set (2/11/2013 for this example); the appropriate gender, age, and event must be selected; and the Race number must be set (53) at the bottom left. It is not necessary to change the Heat number but it is recommended to set this to 1 if this is the first of more heats for this event. You can now press Review Times. The Review Times window is split into two sections: a left and right panel. The left panel contains the times that will be given to athletes; the right panel contains check times from the chief timekeeper and/or multiple readings from the gates. Times can be swapped between panels, and added to or removed from the left panel. Once the left panel contains the correct times, you can press Accept Times. The allocation of times to athletes is now dependent on whether the race was run as a pack start or in lanes. Laned race When the participant list has been processed for a meet, linking times to athletes is very easy. Have the athletes line up in lane order then double click on athlete names in that order. Times will be automatically allocated. Alternatively, you can manually enter the lane number or the heat placing in the appropriate column to automatically allocate times. Pack race Whilst there are two long distance race modes in the timing equipment, it is recommended to use the SPLIT mode in a different way to what is described in the user manual. Instead of using one push-button for recording times for boys and the other push-button for girls, it is recommended to use one push-button as the primary time recorder and the second push-button as a backup. Should a record be recognised in the primary times, it can be confirmed from the backup times. Similarly, if a primary time is missed by the timekeeper, the backup time can be used. Single Gender, Single Age Race Have the athletes line up in the order they finished then double click on athlete names in that order. Times will be automatically allocated. Alternatively, you can manually enter the the heat placing in the appropriate column to automatically allocate times. Multi-Gender, Multi-Age Race to be continued... Importing and Exporting Results Importing Results After your athletes visit another Centre for a meet, the other Centre's Records & Rankings officer will send you a SLAM created Excel file containing results for all athletes from your Centre. Using HD@CLA24Oct13.xls as an example, the format for the filename is H'obart '''D'istricts athletes competing '@ CLA'rence on the '24'th of 'Oct'ober, 20'''13. Before you import the file into SLAM, you should open it in Excel and do three important things: #Make sure the spelling of names precisely matches the spelling in your SLAM database. #Make sure that all athletes in the Excel file are listed as 'registered' in your SLAM database. #Remove the 'MeetID' column in the Excel file. (This will be fixed in a future version of SLAM). In the screen shot to the right, the file being imported is HD@CLA24Oct13'a'.xls. I have added the a''' to indicate that it is an amended file - the MeetID column has been removed. If the athlete information is not correct, the events will load into SLAM but the results will not. Points 1 and 2 above can be an issue early in the season when athletes have not yet finalised their registrations or new athletes are trying out. You can now enter the Maintain Meets section of SLAM and create a new meet. Enter the date and location of the meet, and make the appropriate choices for Local Meet, Track Finals, etc. In the Import Events and Results box at the bottom of the window, browse for the Excel file and then press the Import button. The events and results will now upload, the Result Entry window will open, and you can then Finalise the meet. Exporting Results If athletes from other Centres visit one of your meets, it is expected that you send their results to the respective Records & Rankings Officer. Files containing the results are created in the Meet Based Reports section. With the appropriate meet selected, press the button for Visitor Tickets (Export). An Excel file will be created for each visiting Centre and saved in the directory C:\SLAM\Visitors. Using '''BNE@HD05Oct13.xls as an example, the format for the filename is B'ur'N'i'E athletes competing @''' 'H'obart 'D'istricts on '''05 Oct'ober, 20'13. The Excel files created by SLAM include a column called MeetID. This column will have to be removed before the receiving Centre imports the file into their database.